Here Comes the Sun
by delga
Summary: Amita/Charlie; better days. She shivers warmly.


**here comes the sun.** (numb3rs)  
amita; amita/charlie; better days  
_she shivers warmly_

title sections from the beatles' _here comes the sun_, although the version I had on repeat was the one by belle and sebastian. written for _**numb3rswom3n**_. no copyright infringement intended.

--

but she told me I was like water.  
water can carve its way, even through stone.  
and when trapped, water makes a new path.  
**sayuri; **_**memoirs of a geisha**_** (2005)**

I can't call out

unless it's to cry your name out the open window

to a sky that looks right back and says it's never seen rain

**the weepies; **_**happiness**_

all water has a perfect memory,

and is forever trying to get back to where it was

**toni morrison**

--

**i. here it comes.**

His hair in her fingers is thick and unruly; it needs cutting, but when is that never the case? He laughs against her throat and she shivers warmly, the sensation running straight to her belly, and making her glow. She wonders if people can tell, she wonders if they can see the way she feels, all light and levity, contented and _full _as though she could not take anymore happiness, even if Charlie had anymore to give.

Charlie presses his lips to her chin, that spot just beneath her ear, her neck; his tongue brushes daringly against her pulse, and she smiles, is always smiling now, with her fingers pressing gently into his skull and their bodies seeking one other out under the bright blue sky.

--

She remembers— it happens this way, of course, that she is late on his bright Autumn morning, and he is too, the metal tags on her bag are chiming against the table as she slides into her seat, and he bursts into the classroom, _ah, hello, I'm Professor Charles Eppes, I, uh—_ She's pulling her notebook out of her bag, eyes still on the man at the head of the room, and her pen rolls across the desk, over the edge, skipping and rattling across the floor. Except the Professor's dropped his board marker, too, and for a moment they're both beneath the tables, hands reaching out for something lost. He looks up momentarily as her fingers meet the errant ballpoint, and his eyes meet hers. Pause. He smiles. Amita's a little embarrassed, and she straightens up quickly, her face warm for the first ten minutes of the class.

--

He's her supervisor, and it's exciting to be working with the greatest mathematical mind in the state, let alone on the campus. Charlie's numbers illuminate the board, and his prisms cast rainbows across the room, little breaks of sunlight dancing on the walls. He interrogates her work; sometimes he has to pause, _that's an interesting way of phrasing this; is this what you're trying to—?_ and she surprises him with her insight at times. _Appreciate all turns of perspective_, Larry says when they first meet, and Amita laughs at the look on Charlie's face, his brow wrinkling as he tries to temper his impatience.

She takes time out to go to a local gig and she buys tickets to see a band with her friend; they go to the cinema once a month, and she watches TV when she's in her apartment, the static ringing in the back of the head as she goes over her latest calculations. Not everything is mathematics, even when she starts to work with Charlie on his more expansive projects. She takes time to sit outside and soak up the sun; she takes time to talk to people who aren't mathematicians and physicists.

And there's Charlie, making a difference, making math work in the real world, and it's intriguing, and exciting, and _fun _in a way that she can't explain to people who've never lived through it. When the year comes to an end, she's been thinking that it might be an idea to do more work, and he gets shy when she says so, can't make eye-contact, but smiles at his feet then looks up again, bright-eyed and pleased, so pleased.

--

**ii. it's been a long, cold, lonely winter.**

Harvard is more than a little tempting. The letter is a blight in her hand, too white against the coffee tones of her skin, but yes, very tempting, especially after a year of trying to scratch that itch and still feeling sore. There are reasons apart from Charlie to consider, too, like the distance from Massachusetts to California, the distance from the future and her family; whether she really wants to uproot her way of life for a city that's colder and less open to the sky than the one which she inhabits now. Is it worth it, she wonders, to give it up and wait and see if California offers up anything else? Is it worth it, just for Charlie? She thinks: no, no, it isn't, but she doesn't make a decision, not just yet.

There is no real incentive to stay - Charlie only asks for her when he thinks he's going to lose her, but then he doesn't act on his impulse, he doesn't touch her, or try to anchor her to the West Coast. Sometimes she thinks that he's more afraid of loss in the abstract sense, than he is of losing her specifically, and it makes her less forgiving.

The letter is stuck to the fridge door and mocks her every time she goes to get something to eat; it's a damn good placement, and it's exactly what she wants to be doing, too. One morning she's rushing to make her coffee and slams the fridge door shut. The letter floats to the floor and she pauses, lets it sit on the dulled-orange linoleum. This is ridiculous. She's got to take the job.

Amita's not afraid of difficult decisions. She's made them before, and she'll make them again. She forges her own roads. _Never let anyone tell you that you cannot do what you set your mind to doing_, her grandmother once told her. She thinks she smells incense burning in the east; she makes up her mind to call the Harvard faculty when she gets to campus.

She gets the counter-offer from CalSci almost as soon as she walks onto campus, when she bumps into the Department Head. It gives her another option, one that she nearly dismisses - she's made a decision, after all - but she takes the time to consider the pros and the cons. Larry sees her, too, smiles encouragingly, and she knows that he knows about the counter-offer, if not the complications that arise with it. He doesn't give her a philosophical treatise on the state of the universe, making a microcosm her life, but he does put his hand on her arm and walk with her to her class.

--

That he is still clumsy sometimes, that she can still find him trying is not untrue. She finds that Charlie forgets that she speaks the language, too, maybe not with such immediacy, but that she knows its metre as well as he does. But she tried leaving once before, and that wasn't the answer - not to Charlie, and not to her own happiness. She's not above a little selfishness; she knows what she wants, and she makes moves to get what she wants.

Amita is strong in the way that others are not; Amita is patient and good-tempered for the most part. _In all things you must have patience_, her father taught her, _for only those things worth waiting for are those things worth having_. She isn't fickle, and she doesn't have the stomach to be mean. Yes, Charlie can try her temper; yes, Charlie's ego could black out the sun, but she appreciates that his egotism is well-founded, and even when that isn't the case, she's careful with her admonishments. That's not to say that she doesn't hold him to account for his actions - she's patient, not passive - but they're both growing, trying to make space for one another, and that means sometimes you have to hold your irritation for a while at least.

Bodies in the sun cast shadows, that's unavoidable. You make the most of the light that you find, and let the shadows fall behind you.

--

**iii. and I say, it's all right.**

The sun glosses the neighbourhood in a way that should be stifling, but the breeze outside is kind, if not a little crisp. Fall is wending in, she can taste it on the wind, but other than the kick in the air it's as bright a summer's day as any other. Alan is out with Millie, and Don is in the garden with Charlie. The two of them are sitting on the patio, Don with requisite beer in hand. The week has been long, and they're both a little worn around the edges, and if she squints they could be two young boys again. She wonders not for the first time what they'd been like as children. She'd happened upon a photograph on the upstairs landing and it draws her back again and again - Don standing awkwardly to one side, hand in his hair, and Charlie looking straight into the camera lens, beaming like a Cheshire cat. It's an achingly familiar pose, so childish and so removed from the man that she knows, and yet something about it still rings true. She can look at that photograph and recognise something about Charlie that is timeless, something not bound by age. Something purely him.

Amita's week has been a mass of papers, and she's only seen Charlie in the evenings, though even then she only found him in the garage, or caught him in transit, running from one place to his brother. But she doesn't begrudge Charlie this, doesn't resent his family that he loves so much; nor does she take for granted their kindness to her, and their unspoken welcome. That doesn't mean she blushes any less when Alan walks in on her and Charlie, or that she doesn't still feel overwhelmed when Charlie and Don are arguing, the way that brothers are wont to do. But when Charlie runs out the door, and Alan laughs, asking Amita if she wants to eat now or later, it feels natural. It feels a little like home.

--

She wakes in his bed; she can smell breakfast cooking downstairs, but she doubts it's Charlie's doing. The thought is confirmed when she hears the shower come on, and she settles back into the comforter to wait for him to get ready. She looks around the room, is again struck by how it is his space, though slowly she is making her mark, too. Her sweater is on the floor with Charlie's clothes, and her earrings are on the bedside table, next to his watch.

He comes out of the bathroom in a towel, hair damp and oddly straight. His nose is wet when he kisses her, and she giggles, bringing her hand up to caress his cheek. _Good morning_. She feels it again, that low heat in her belly that makes her warm and loose, all limbs and no elegance, and she wants to feel like this all the time; she wants to come back to this, find her way through her days and feel _this_, be anchored by _this_. Charlie kisses her again, and she's still giggling, but so is he; he's slow and affectionate, tugging gently at her lower lip, asking to be invited in, and she opens her mouth against his, hands holding onto his shoulders as he presses onto her awkwardly. _Good morning_.

The dawn is floating in through the crack in the curtains, spilling in pools across the room, and when it glides across her feet, her skin tingles. She breathes deep, opens herself up to Charlie and to the day, warm and full, singing, _come, come, I am here, I am the sun_.

**end. **


End file.
